Positive Attitude

Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 12:59:20 -0500
From: Nettie Porter
Subject: Positive Attitude--a great story!

"Positive Attitude" (Author unknown)

Jerry is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good
mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would
ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I
would be twins!

He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had
followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the
waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural
motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there,
telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the
situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to
Jerry and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all
of the time. How do you do it?"

Jerry replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you
have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you
can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood. Each
time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can
choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time
someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their
complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose
the positive side of life."

"Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested.

"Yes it is," Jerry said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut
away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you
react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood.
You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's
your choice how you live life."

I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the
restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I
often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of
reacting to it. Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something
you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the
back door open one morning and was held up at gun-point by three armed
robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from
nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and
shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to
the local trauma center. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of
intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments
of the bullets still in his body.

I was with Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked
him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins.
Wanna see my scars?"

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through
his mind as the robbery took place.

"The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have
locked the back door", Jerry replied. "Then, as I lay on the floor,
I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or I
could choose to die. I chose to live."

"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked.

Jerry continued, "The paramedics were great. They kept telling me
I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I
was looking at the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses,
I got really scared. In their eyes, I read 'he's a dead man'.
I knew I needed to take action."

"What did you do?" I asked. "Well, there was a big burly nurse
shouting questions at me," said Jerry. "She asked if I was allergic
to anything.

'Yes' I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they
waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Bullets!'
Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live. Operate
on me as if I am alive, not dead."

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of
his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the
choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything. Now, you
have two choices:

Ignore it.

Forward it to the people you care about.


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